Apologies for diving straight in like that, I should have had the common sense to acquire permission before posting. I've explained my past association with Marius' character to the man himself, I'll let the RP play it out should it head in that direction. No point spoiling good IC conversation I was going to set up my character as a minor government official tied in with the urban cohorts, nipping the potential riot you lot seem intent on creating I've got some ideas for some potential long term role play if anyone would be interested in hearing them.

No fear, it's not a "permission" sort of thing. Come on in; the water's fine! But, as in any forum or e-list, it's a good idea to read the archives, at least far back enough to know what's going on (and who's wearing civvies). Fortunately for this RP, the thread is still short enough that a new player can read back through the whole thing.

So how's the Australian army been treating you? You must have a few stories to tell, yourself! >({|;-)

It appears that your character's leap at Paulus's character takes place at that moment where Paulus starts his "For the love of all the Gods, don't make her angry!" speech. So somehow the rest of his speech follows Marius's attack and the body-slam to the table.

Speech finished, however, Formosus launches his own character's attack, who's depending on Marius to guard him against Medusa. So it's -

I wait what you guys decide to do with Paulus because I think running away would seperate the group and the idea with the tavern was to merge the two groups together. So I wait for your posts till I take any further action.

It appears that your character's leap at Paulus's character takes place at that moment where Paulus starts his "For the love of all the Gods, don't make her angry!" speech. So somehow the rest of his speech follows Marius's attack and the body-slam to the table.

Speech finished, however, Formosus launches his own character's attack, who's depending on Marius to guard him against Medusa. So it's -

Well I'll be an armadillo if I can still make heads or tails out of this. I had that 'boy' pinned to the ground already and was just about to give him a good thrashing when Claudia stopped me, because he is no match for me, of course ... and then Marius goes for him while he is already down ... now, that's bad sportsmanship I think, Marius. (And who's covering my back ?I'd like to ask.) At least Medusa has some common sense left. TBTG for that.

Salvete, conlusores! (There's your word, mi Iohanne; it means "fellow-players".) >({|:-)> It appears that your character's leap at Paulus's character takes place at that moment where Paulus starts his "For the love of all the Gods,> don't make her angry!" speech. So somehow the rest of his speech follows Marius's attack and the body-slam to the table.Well, you see...Paulus grabbed Marius and then made the Speech, nonne? Or I thought he did... I also wasn't clear on when (or if) Paulus got knocked down by anyone else before Marius attacked. I actually thought Medusa tripped Formosus; did Formosus get back up again, and if not, then who tripped Paulus? If Paulus was down, he'd've had to get up again to grab Marius. That done, Marius would have returned the favor, restoring Paulus to a horizontal position either on the table or on the floor. Maybe Paulus actually managed to leap onto the mensa before grabbing Marius and being flung off again? (Sounds more heroic for Paulus than making the rest of his speech flat on his back in an obvious plea for mercy. Whatt'ya say, Paulus?) <g>> Well I'll be an armadillo if I can still make heads or tails out of this...Perhaps the several separate actions in Paulus' fight scene might have been handled one post at a time, so that the others would have had an opportunity to react to them individually? He grabbed Marius...what then? Did Marius do anything? Paulus tried to leap onto the table...did he make it? (He might have, but it was far from a sure thing.) Did he have everyone's attention before he made his speech? If each of these 'moves' had been posted separately, we might all be on the same page, if not the same paragraph. Paulus might not have even needed to take some of his later actions if the rest of the characters had been able to react to his first few. Hei, our characters might all have had a good chuckle over it by now!

But...no harm, no foul. Knowing where to leave off is a skill. We learn these things as we go along. RP is new for some of us, and I'm pretty sure that having our characters fight each other is new to everybody. There was no rule against it in the old RP; it just never came up...there were always plenty of NPCs ("non-player characters", the incidental types like the grill chef, the waitress, the other diners...) available to be knocked around instead. <feg>

> I think running away would seperate the group and the idea with the tavern was to merge the two groups together...There's nothing that says the whole lot of us have to stick together, or even be friends. If Paulus and Medusa end up in one subplot, and Marius' group are in another, and the only thing they have in common is that inconvenient Tribune who wants to bust them all, hei, that works too!

So...where are we now? Marius just nailed *somebody* to *something*... Procedemus, then; we can only go forwards from where we're standing! >({|8-]

Could I get you to review the last week or so of posts on this thread? We've just untangled ourselves from the last time a player wrote for any other characters besides his own. As I said then, knowing when to leave off is a skill we're all still learning. It seems to me that you have spoken for Marius as well as Flavius, and taken Formosus, Paulus, and Medusa into custody without a murmur from any of them. "All things are possible", of course...but not all things are equally likely, and getting a madman, a soldier and a gladiatrix to hand themselves over quietly strikes me as falling near the "unlikely" end of the spectrum.

Re vera, it'll be easier to respond to the Tribune's last post if it does not already tell me what my character did. I imagine the others would similarly like the opportunity to help themselves out of this mess. And, c'mon, if capturing us were easy, it wouldn't be any fun, now, would it? >({|;-)

Me personally, would like nothing better than to revisit the Mamertine once more ( that's where Peter and Paul spent their last days ) in the company of Medusa and Paulus, if I'm correct. Perhaps we could make a daring escape, just at the last moment, before they throw us off the Tarpeian Rock ? You other guys come and rescue us ? What do you say ?

But I do see a problem : what if you have just finished your chapter following up on the last one posted and just when you are about to submit, someone else beats you to the post and messes everything you've written up ? I suspect that's a bit what happened when Marius decided to go ballistic a couple of chapters ago.

Formosus Viriustus wrote:But I do see a problem : what if you have just finished your chapter following up on the last one posted and just when you are about to submit, someone else beats you to the post and messes everything you've written up ? I suspect that's a bit what happened when Marius decided to go ballistic a couple of chapters ago.

In amicitia,

Every subscriber has the power to edit and delete their own posts if necessary. I make so many typos the edit feature is used a lot on my end.

If there are contradictions in the narrative of those sorts, there's no reason we can't hash them out here in the 'maintenance' thread and then edit our posts to implement the solution. Shouldn't be a big deal.

I inserted a parenthetical note in my last post, a reference to Paulus' 'boss' in Egypt, a Governor who was in the post from 115-117. No one else had written any more specific time references, so I took the liberty of placing our narrative in the first year of the Emperor Hadrian's reign.

However...I am editing that post and placing our story in 180, the first year of Commodus' reign. When Paulus left Alexandria, he was working for the administration of Titus Taius Sanctus, who was governor from 178-180. Is this agreeable to everyone?

It also gives us, if we want, a chance to mingle in and out with the characters of the movie Gladiator. We might be characters you never see on the screen, but off camera, or in the background.

...Where'd my last discussion post go? I thought I'd dropped a line here this afternoon explaining my notion of the time-period...

I did indeed mention Trajan's Forum, where Marius shops for books. I also mentioned that Marius' stoic mug is somewhere on the Column, himself having served in one or both of Trajan's wars. Too, he and the rest of his Legion built the eastern third of Hadrian's Wall. Assuming he's been retired for several years, most of them spent Wolf-wandering, he might have lived through Hadrian's term, but only maybe. If he did, it wouldn't have been very far into Antoninus Pius' reign, by which time he'd be very old for a veteran of the Parthian Wars. Commodus is completely out of his picture.

I'd had an idea, early in the Discussion Thread, about a spinoff from Gladiator, one that would clear up a loose end: What happened to the Legion Maximus had waiting for his orders in Ostia? Would they have lined up with whoever came out on top in a fight for the throne, or would they actually have entered the City to help Senator Gracchus found the new Republic? Could've been interesting; but most of us are playing civilians this time out, and we pretty much agreed that we wanted the story to mainly take place in Rome itself, which would kind of preclude us all running Medusa down to Africa to keep her out of trouble.

In any event, I'm not for reenacting the movie itself. You know what they say about remakes, or sequels for that matter. If we like the basic idea of "the Emperor is gone and there is a chance to resurrect the Republic", we can move it back to Hadrian's death or thereabouts and run with it from there. But the movie would only be a takeoff point; all its events (whatever year we decided they took place) would be in the characters' immediate past, and the story would lie in where we decided to take it from there. Not everyone sees the Republican era through rose-tinted speculi!

Otherwise, I'm just as content to lay back and see if a plot emerges from the backgrounds and interactions of the characters themselves. Anyone can introduce a new plot element, which the other players are free to pursue or let lie as it suits them. This is, after all, everyone's story!

Makes no difference to me which emperor we are living under. Some of us might even live under Hadrianus and others under Commodus, and still we might meet. How's that possible ? Don't ask me.

Am I correct in assuming that my edits in previous posts are only visible to me ? Apparently Paulus does quite some editing too, but I see no indication of that. I was getting a bit worried, having edited one half page chapter three times now and still finding at least one spelling error on looking back.

So this places our story just after the ascension of Commodus? We would also have to remember that Commodus had Geta ruling alongside him, at least initially. We will have the opportunity to play around with the death of Commodus and the resurrection of a New Republic. This would be especially good if we want to restrict game play to the City for the time being.